Dar as-Sunnah Publishers UK
Know O beloved reader that it is most important to spend one’s time and energy in treating the heart, and hastening to correct and purify if from sickness and all sins. This is due to the heart occupying a great and lofty position in Islaam, for it is the place to which the Lord looks and the storehouse for tawheed, faith and sincerity. Actions are distinguished, one from the other, with respect to their excellence in the Sight of Allaah in accordance with the condition of the heart, not by their number or form, but rather due to the strength of the caller, his truthfulness, his sincerity and the extent to which he prefer Allaah over himself… Al-Haafidh ibn Hajr al-Asqalaanee, may Allaah have mercy upon him and provide us with his knowledge, said: “The heart has been singled out for this because it is the leader of the body, and through the purification of the leader the subjects become purified, and with his corruption they become corrupted. So if you, Observant of Allaah, wish to cure your hear then it is upon you to be truthful with regards to seeking refuge with Allaah and putting your trust in Him, to pray a great deal of supererogatory prayers, to perform the actions of obedience to Allaah frequently, to pray the night prayer while the people are sleeping, and to treat your heart by making it continuously stick to the remembrances and by befriending only the righteous… and to frequently recite the Qur’aan. And Allaah will indeed allow all of this to be preserved by him.” Taken from the Compiler’s Foreword

About Ibn Taymiyah
Shaykh al-Islam Taqi ud-Din Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad Ibn al-Halim ibn
Abd al-Salam Ibn Taymiyah al-Hanbali was born in , 661 AH (1263 AC) in
Haran, which is now in Eastern Turkey, near the border of northern Iraq..
His family had long been renowned for its learning , among his teachers, was
Shams ud-Din Al-Maqdisi, first Hanbali Chief Justice of Syria following the
reform of the judiciary by Baibars. The number of Ibn Taimiyah's teachers
exceeds two hundred. Ibn Taimiyah was barely seventeen, when Qadi Al-Maqdisi
authorized him to issue Fatwa (legal verdict). Qadi remembered with pride
that it was he who had first permitted an intelligent and learned man like
Ibn Taimiyah to give Fatwa. At the same age, he started delivering lectures.
When he was thirty, he was offered the office of Chief Justice, but refused,
as he could not persuade himself to follow the limitations imposed by the
authorities.
Imam Ibn Taimiyah's education was essentially that of a Hanbali theologian
and jurisconsult. But to his knowledge of early and classical Hanbalism, he
added not only that of the other schools of jurisprudence but also that of
other literature.
He had an extensive knowledge of Quran, Sunnah, Greek philosophy,
Islamic history, and religious books of others, as is evident from the
variety of the books he wrote.